John Schrag

I’m visiting the Canadian Museum of History today. It has a magnificent collection of First Nations art.

This is the plaster source of the sculpture “The Spirit of Haida Gwaii” by Haida artist Bill Reid. I think I’ve seen the final green marble sculpture in the Vancouver airport. Reid’s statement of what the piece is about really speaks to the world today:

“Here we are at last, a long way from Haida Gwaii, not too sure where we are or where we're going, still squabbling and vying for position in the boat, but somehow managing to appear to be heading in some direction; at least the paddles are together, and the man in the middle seems to have some vision of what is to come."

This morning I rented a bicycle on Sparks Street and did a 20K ride along the banks of the Ottawa River, exploring as I went. Apparently my timing is good — much of the path had been closed for the last two years and only opened two days ago, according to the bike shop employee.

I explored the hydroelectric station in the middle of the river; an old railway bridge that had been converted to a bike/pedestrian bridge; and just enjoyed all the forested scenery and lots of birdsong on my ride.

#ottawa #biking

I just took the Ottawa O-Train from where I was staying downtown to the airport. My other option was the bus, which would have been faster, but I strongly prefer travelling by train. The train trip can be as short as 40 minutes, if you make the connections between the three trains perfectly, or a half hour longer if, like me today, you have to wait the maximum amount of time for each train.

This was my experience this week getting around Ottawa entirely by public transit — it’s fine, if you have the time.

#transit #ottawa

So, update on my elderly relative who is falling for a romance scam:

So far he’s been told it’s a scam by all of his siblings, all of his children, and all of his friends. He thinks that it is somehow more likely that beautiful woman half his age who texted him accidentally has fallen in love with him, sight unseen.

He’s sure the love is real — “she” was going to visit him on a specific date and prove us wrong! We told him that at the last minute her flight would be cancelled or her car would break down and she’d need money — and when that happened, exactly as predicted, he STILL DIDN’T BELIEVE IT WAS A SCAM.

You know who came through for us? His BANK. He went in to take out money in some transferable form, and they told him he was being scammed and refused to give him any money.

Last I heard, the scammer is trying to teach him how to deposit money via those crypto ATMs. He might be saved by his incompetence with technology.

I’m not ragging on him — he’s a lonely generous man in the beginings of cognitive decline, and very vulnerable. These scams can be very effective, even against smart people.

Thirty-five years ago I helped found a queer community choir in Toronto called “Singing Out”, and served as its artistic director for seven or eight years, until my career made it impossible to continue (because of constant travel).

While I haven’t been involved in 25 years, the choir has kept on, and is now bigger than ever and sounding great. I went to see their Pride concert last night (called “Under Pressure”) and it was top-notch, playing to a packed house.

It never occurred to me that something I helped create in my 20s might actually outlive me.

The focus of the choir has changed over the years — it was born during the AIDS crisis, when gay men were under attack on all fronts. Now that the Eye of Sauron has turned to trans people, the chorus has a big focus there, including a trans/nonbinary sub-choir that performed two numbers.

The concert was a great kickoff to Pride for me, on a few levels. The whole queer choral movement has provided safe spaces to create music together and literally have a voice, and and easy place for queer folk to invite their families into.

#SingingOut #Pride

Today I explored the newly-opened sections of Biidaasige Park on Toronto’s waterfront. It completely exceeded my expectations.

The new area is full of windy intersecting trails, with various levels for different views, a wide promenade at the mouth of the Don, and spectacular views of the downtown skyline. It’s all planted with native species, which have already been inhabited by birds. A huge flock of red-winged blackbirds emerged from a dense copse I was riding past. There were butterflies and waterbirds as well.

People were walking, fishing, playing with their kids, and taking pictures. Everything is accessible. There is a dock for a little hourly water bus service that goes from the park to Diwntown, then out towards Billy Bishop airport.

Combined with the previously-opened section, Biidaasige is now a huge park, right in the heart of the city. Another jewel that belongs to all of us.

#toronto #biidaasige

Hmmm. Last night’s weather forecast said that we were supposed to get thunderstorms with over 60mm of rain today (that’s over 2 inches). But today’s forecast just says “cloudy”.

I did hear a single half-hearted thunderclap overnight.

I guess I can stop building the ark now.

#toronto

Our democracy, like our Parliament buildings, needs constant work.

We need to dump our outdated first-past-the-post system and adopt some form of proportional representation!

#fairVote #Canada

I love this mural in my neighbourhood. Somehow it’s managed to last a whole year without some asshole spraying graffiti over it. It’s sort of hidden in an alley.
#art #mural #toronto

Three years ago a pair of robins built their nest on a little ledge under the window of my home office, giving me an excellent view of their child-rearing. I took these pictures over a 14-day period, ending on this date.

I learned a lot - first, that robins don’t live in the nests. It’s just for the eggs, and fledglings immediately abandon the nest once they can fly. Second, if the eggs don’t hatch fast enough, mom dumps them out. Third: baby robins poop in tiny contained packages that are easy for mom to hoist out of the nest (would that human children could do the same).

Note: I’m in Canada, so this is the North American Robin, and not the European Robin which is a completely different species (and much cuter)

One of the characteristics of the current right in politics is a hatred of the idea of common wealth — the things and services that citizens own and collectively benefit from. E.g. I may not be able to afford a big lawn for my kids, but collectively we have beautiful parks where all the kids can play.

Here in Ontario, Doug Ford seems really focused on identifying any public wealth we have and finding a way (ethical or not) to convert it to private wealth for his cronies and donors. He’s done it with the Greenbelt, Ontario Place, the Science Centre, and now he’s doing it to the Toronto Island as well as eating away at our public health system. We’ve been able to push him back a couple of times because he still wants to be liked, but he really does seem to be getting worse.

I think it might be a good thing to put people in the mindset of thinking of their wealth as a combination of ‘what I own’ plus ‘what we own together’.

I wonder if politician like Ford were the kids who never learned to share?

#ONpoli

I went to see Minions and Monsters last night. I was expecting a straight-up monster movie, but I was delighted to see that much more than that, it was an homage to the golden age of silent film. There were so many sly (but mostly overt) references to many silent films, right back to Muybridge’s early motion studies.

The movie itself it a fun piece of fluff, as one expects from minions. George Lucas has an amazing cameo. Jesse Eisenberg voices a character that seems entirely out of character for Jesse Eisenberg.

I was paying more attention to minion language, and noticed snippets of French, Italian,Spanish, and near the end one of them responds to a compliment by saying “谢谢” in Mandarin. There was probably a lot more I missed.

Lots of fun if you like minions!

#MinionsAndMonsters

Toronto has just launched a pilot of a new water-transit line, connecting Biidaasige Park, the Yonge Street slip, and Bathurst Quay commons near Billy Bishop airport. All the stops are on the inner harbour.

But when I read more of the details, the project seems doomed to me. First, the boats run hourly. But they don’t say when during that hour they arrive. You could easily get between all three of the stops via regular public transportation during that time.

Second, the boats only hold 12 people. No word on if they take bikes. (Maybe it doesn’t matter; biking between stops would be faster.)

But the biggest mistake is the price — they’ve decided to use water taxis as the benchmark so the fare is $15 per person. That’s nuts — water taxis are always available and take you where you want to go. This is regularly scheduled paid transit. Not the same.

This reminds me so much of when they launched the Union/Pearson train and charged $30 and no one rode it for months. They finally conceded defeat and dropped the fares by 2/3 and now it’s really popular. Maybe they will have to learn the same lesson again.

The only reason for someone to take this service at this price would be to get a boat ride, and there are better options. If you just want to get between the stops, a taxi would be faster and cheaper (especially if there are multiple people in your party)

#Toronto #WaterfrontToronto

https://www.waterfrontoronto.ca/news/charting-new-waters-launching-new-east-west-water-shuttle-pilot

Yesterday I rode my bike up to the Millwood Bridge, which offers a really nice overlooking view of where Metrolinx is building a new subway bridge over the Don Valley. I wanted to see how the construction was coming along, and take a few pictures of the work-in-progress. It's honestly amazing to me how far apart the support pillars are for this bridge, and I have no idea how they are going to build the spans between them. But I look forward to finding out.

I realized while taking pictures that the crane operator has to climb up right to the top every day. The cherry-pickers they use to get people up and down don't reach nearly that high.

#Metrolinx #OntarioLine #Toronto

Today’s new phishing scam is based on Canada’s FINTRAC regulations. The scammers send a note from your financial institution quoting the regs and asking you to log in with your banking information and upload scans of your photo IDs.

The scam would probably be a bit more effective if a) the scammers bothered to spoof the return address on the email, and b) they didn’t send 30 of them to me in one day, purportedly from every financial institution in the country.

Gosh, nigerianprince@spammer25.phish.net, sure I’ll click on this dodgy-looking link to a site in Russia…

So I just learned that Drake has built an “ice sculpture” (more precisely, a big pile of ice blocks that has not, in fact, been sculpted) in the parking lot of my old high school. The release date of his next album is hidden inside. It seemed pretty lame for a publicity stunt, if you ask me, but I think I underestimated people’s need to take selfies in front of things.

#drake

There was this one time when I was asked to interview a candidate for a senior UX manager position and give my opinion to the hiring VP. The VP liked the candidate. But during the interview, it became clear to me that the candidate spoke well, but there was nothing behind it, and I recommended not hiring. (The other interviewer who was also a UX expert also said the same thing.)

The VP (a woman who had managed a single UX team for three months 25 years earlier) went on to explain to us — both UX execs with decades of experience — how she understood better what a UX team needed and why her candidate was the right choice. She ignored our recommendation and hired the candidate.

(The same VP had to fire that person a few months later for incompetence.)

Having someone with no expertise in my field condescendingly explain my job to me (incorrectly) was a really annoying “WTF” experience.

Afterwards, I realized that this is what mansplaining must feel like to the recipient — something I had never experienced before.

Later I overheard this same VP explaing the best engineering approach for a problem to the director of engineering who reported to her. The VP had no background whatsoever in engineering. Honestly it was kind of fascinating — in my entire career, she was the only woman I had ever worked with who ‘mansplained’ on a regular basis (confirmed by other colleagues). I wondered what combination of factors led to this, and at what point in her career she was able to first pull it off.

When I was a kid, one thing that parents universally did was force us kids to go through basic social politeness rituals with strangers. For example, if I was walking with mom and she saw a co-worker, she’d introduce me, then give me full instructions: “okay, dear, say ‘Hello Mr. Chan’. Now shake his hand. No, the other hand. Good.” And then the stranger would ask the kind of insane questions you ask kids you don’t know, and mom would prompt me to answer. Then the adults could get to talking while we wandered off.

Nowadays I run into adults with kids all the time in my kid-friendly neighbourhood, but it has been decades since I’ve seen any parent instruct their kids this way. When I say hi to my neighbours I will always say hello to the kids as well to be polite, and the almost universal reaction is a deer-in-the-headlights look with a confused wary silence. (The teenagers are fine, they will grunt a greeting at me. I’m talking about the little ones.)

I’m curious how/when this parenting shift occurred. Were you taught social niceties explicitly when you were a kid? Are you coaching your kids?

#etiquette

It was cancelled, but now it’s back! I am so happy to see that the legal documentary of the year is getting released this summer!

https://youtu.be/b76pK6uYQfA

#CoyoteVsAcme

I just discovered to my astonishment that my husband has never heard of the kid’s game Marco Polo. He was raised here in Canada, like me. To be fair, he told me that he had no access to a pool or lake growing up, so that might have something to do with it.

Now I’m wondering how universal some of these games are.

Which of these games do you know from your childhood? Are there others you’d expect to be universally known? (Unfortunately my instance limits me to four option for the quiz)

#games

I just saw the new movie “The Christophers”, starring Ian McKellan and Michaela Coel. McKellan plays an aging painter who has fallen from grace; Coel plays an art forger hired by the painter’s greedy children to forge completion of some of his old paintings, so they can get an inheritance. McKellan’s character is an annoying and difficult elderly man, but who is also witty and somehow both charming and off-putting. A lot of layers to the character, and McKellan shows his mastery of those kinds of roles. Coel’s performance is much more interior, but also masterful. The film is directed by Stephen Soderbergh. I loved it - it was serious but never maudlin, and often funny.

#TheChristophers #films